Recently, various types of seats have been provided for this kind of situation. For example, a vehicle seat is disclosed in JP 9-39622. This vehicle seat has a rotation mechanism for rotating a seat body, a longitudinal slide mechanism for sliding the seat body in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle, and an ascent/descent mechanism that lowers the seat body to a lower position while moving the seat body to the exterior of the vehicle, under the conditions that the seat body is directed to the door opening by the rotation mechanism.
According to this vehicle seat, by moving the seat body to the exterior of the vehicle and lowering the seat body to a height close to the road surface, the passenger can be easily seated on the seat body external to the vehicle. Thereafter, by directly moving the seat body to the interior of the vehicle, the occupant can very easily reach a predetermined position in the interior of the vehicle. Conversely, the occupant can move to the exterior of the vehicle in the reverse way.
Further, by utilizing a driving motor as a drive source in order to operate each of the mechanisms for moving the seat body, the passenger can more easily get into and out of the vehicle. As a result, it is possible to significantly reduce the burden of care personnel.